Hi guys. Just bought the T60 a few days back and noticed some tiny pops during play (EQ Normal). Knowing is not my music like that and it tend to happen when the sound is "busier" rather than on silence, I generated an MP3 file of a tone of 1kHz, both sine and rectangular waves, and yes, the speckles are even more evident now. It sounds exactly like the old vynil type of speckled sound.

Installed new firmware v1.03 from v1.02, but to no avail.
I then changed various settings to see what happens and noticed that the sound would be clear if I turn away from EQ Normal to some preset EQ. But this would drain battery juice even more. It doesn't do it while the screen is on either.

Anyone else had this happen? I'm planning to return it for the iFP series if there's no workaround on this.

I hope it's the music and not the player, because I've been looking for the perfect DAP with AA/AAA battery, good sound and 4GB if possible. The T60 seems the best, but you're making me doubt... What king of headphones are you using? Have you tried different ones?

Yes, I've tried it with two other headphones, beside the bundled one, even varying impedances, 24Ω vs. 32Ω. Still no luck.

Below I've included a zip file containing two sound files, one original generated 16 kHz tone with a duration of 10 sec. The other one is what I've been able to record with my computer by hooking the player's headphone socket to the soundboard's LINE IN entry via cable, while playing the original.

I've choosed the 16kHz tone instead of the 1kHz because is much more bearable for the ears (you should hear only a very faint whining), and thus one can more easily distinguish the 'speckles' from the actual sound.

The goal of this post is that I'd like to see if others can hear it too while playing the original track.
Remember, Equalizer=Normal and LCD=Off while playing.

The other thing you could check is to check is the file integrity. Here's how you do:

1. Upload a file to the player.
2. Download the file to the computer without overwriting the original.
3. Compare the file with something that calculates md5sum or something like that. I use eXpress Checksum Calculator available here: http://www.irnis.net/free.shtml

I think file integrity case is excluded, as I said earlier, if I set the Equalizer to something other than Normal, all tracks will play clear.

I've been able to measure the current drain in both cases: Normal eq or other preset eq, so the Normal drains ~50mA while others ~60mA (LCD off in all cases). Meaning that for an ordinary 900mAh rechargeable you'd listen ~3 more hours of music on Normal (18h vs. 15h).

Since originally reading this post, I've been listening rather carefully to my music. The music where the sound is speckled was recorded in bad conditions, for me. The ones where the sound is clear I had utter control over (yes, I used iTunes. It works for me). I have had a couple of files corrupt on me, but I'm pretty sure that's my fault too, and very easy to fix.

hi,
i've just tried to listen to that original 16kHz sound from the zip file - with exactly the same result as you get, bepa. very surprising. bepa, is there some difference in current drain between normal eq and user eq with all values set to 0?

is there some difference in current drain between normal eq and user eq with all values set to 0?

User Eq or Disco, Jazz, Pop or even the SRS makes no difference regarding current drain. They all require ~10mA more current.
That's understandable in digital. The Equalizer is a little section of the Digital Sound Processor (DSP) chip. In Normal, that section will be left unactivated. In preset mode, that section will be "plugged in", and the difference between the various presets and settings (User or SRS settings) will be made by software.

after reading this thread I started to listen to my music more carefully, but I didn't manage to notice any speckles. my music sounded well. so I tried to make my own 16kHz sound in Foobar and make some experiments. unfortunately I managed to make Foobar save it only as a VBR mp3, but as it turned out, it didn't matter. I don't know if I made a mistake somewhere, but I can't hear any speckles in my mp3 even with equaliser set to normal and display turned off. The file is attached, so you can try it too. Is it because my mp3 is only 32kbit/s?

Yeah, I downloaded what you made and indeed the sound is clean. But is your music encoded at 32kbits?
My testfile was at 128kbit, wich is quite close to minimum for Hi-Fi listening I'd say. In fact, I don't think I own a track out of thousands encoded below 128kbit.
I've checked the firmware update utility, it say nay. No new firmware.

Of course it isn't. Which software should I use to make a wav file with 16kHz tone?

edit: Well, I managed to make a 192kbs mp3 in NCH Tone Generator and yes, the sound is really speckled. But still I can't hear anything like that in my music (APS in lame). Maybe my ears just aren't good enough to hear that. But it seems very strange to me that even the reviewer here assumed the sound of T60 to be without any problem. Btw. bepa, I suppose you sent a mail to iRiver (or told them about this matter some other way) without any response, didn't you?

My searches for an AA/AAA-powered audio player led me believe the T60 would be my best choice, but then I saw this thread. I asked herehttp://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...ad.php?t=21495
for recommendations for other players, and a user of T60 wrote he didn't hear those speckles you had heard.

I am wondering whether something has changed since this thread was written, whether perhaps a firmware upgrade solved the problem.

I'd thank you if you could say whether the problem persists (and if it does, whether you can actually hear the noise while listening to real audio), because if it is solved, then the T60 might be my next player.

I've found that, if I record my music properly (at a reasonable quality) and make sure my battery doesn't run out mid-transfer, the quality of the music is great. Unfortunately, I don't know about firmware (I run mine UMS, on a Mac), or anything else.

Thanks classic85, but, if I understand the problem correctly, it does not seem to be related to problems in the production of the files played. On the contrary, the 'perfect' file, recorded at a high bitrate and produced purely digitally, without any recording involved whatsoever, was the one in which the speckles were most noticeable.